Novelist's Desk

Description

Remember Mrs. Fillbottom's creative writing assignment in high school English class? It had to be ten pages - typed. A groan whimpered through the classroom. "That's impossible," said Alan Hemphill, the self appointed class spokesman. You went home and put off the assignment until the night before it is due. That's when it happened. You sat at the old Singer typewriter your mother pulled from a back closet where it had been rusting since her college days. You rolled a blank page over the platen, a page in its blankness, dared you to begin. Before you knew it words were flowing. Ten pages flew by. Twenty. You can't be stopped. Characters took on their personalities. Story lines arced gracefully. Descriptions grabbed all five senses.
The sun came up and the bus beeped impatiently. You gathered up a substantial pile of paper and hurried out the door. In class, you found yourself behind Alan. His limp folder held barely ten pages, most of it filler - terse dialog and drawings of a stick figure cat. Your work, on the other hand, thumped down on Mrs. Fillbottom's desk with a satisfying thwack.
"My, aren't you the novelist," she said.

Yes you are. So come on in. Post your latest chapter. Ask about that tricky plot issue. Help others figure out how to get their main character through chapter 12 without resorting to magic. Complain about publishers who just don't get your cross genre masterpiece. This is your place.